


Reasons (Not) to Fall in Love

by myticanlegends



Category: Frühlings Erwachen | Spring Awakening - Frank Wedekind, Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Falling In Love, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 12:13:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15707001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myticanlegends/pseuds/myticanlegends
Summary: Ernst, when looking back, thinks he fell in love so slowly that he didn’t realize he had until he couldn’t pull himself out. It was probably best that way, so that he didn’t overthink it. Maybe that love had doomed him but he thinks it had also been worth it.It started with Hanschen taking the seat behind him in their shared literature class and asked him his opinion on the Greek epic they had annotated the night before.“Achilles, hero or savage?” he had asked. “Were his motives pure or vengeful? I’m curious as to your opinion, I myself thought him quite the avenging angel of his lover.”“Briseis?” Ernst asked, confused.Hanschen had only laughed and said, “Patroclus.”





	Reasons (Not) to Fall in Love

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I haven’t been writing in a while. But I have been obsessed with musicals for months now, so I decided to post this story I wrote when I first discovered Spring Awakening this year. Hopefully, I will get writing soon. Oops.
> 
> Hanschen and Ernst here are a mix of the characters from the Deaf West revival and the play. I like to think they are in character.
> 
> This fits with the themes of the musical/play so hence there are references to child abuse and rape, and religion, sex, and homosexuality and that internal crisis, but I think it’s not bad. Just canon typical. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Ernst Robel had always thought that he would never be one to fall in love. He thinks that sometimes his parents are in love, when they smile at each other over dinner, and when they hold hands over prayer. He sees many families who are in love at the local church meetings, and sometimes after school he’ll see boys and girls giggling as if maybe they are in love as well.

Falling in love wasn’t an option for Ernst. Not since he was eleven and first started taking gym class with the other boys in his grade and noticed his own… certain reactions. Certain reactions that were lacking when talking about other girls.

It was one thing to know what that was. It wasn’t as if it were a well kept secret that men could like other men, just as women could like other women. 

It was another thing to know what that meant.

“You stay away from that Max boy,” Ernst’s father told him one day as they entered the pews of the chapel. Max von Trenk’s red hair had been spotted a couple rows up where he was in an animated discussion with one of their fellow schoolboys.

Like a fool, Ernst asked why and only received a, “He’s a sinner of the Lord,” which to Ernst’s father, who was a preacher in the neighborhood over, didn’t clarify much.

But Ernst could catch on well enough to what his father may have been referring to Max got called to the principal’s office and never returned. He got ill a couple weeks later but there were rumors he had been expelled because he had been caught with another boy. The name Hanschen Rilow was present in the distance between desks but no one said a word. When Max died, Ernst’s father only grunted and said it was punishment for his sins. Hanschen missed his first couple days of school after the funeral and was rumored to have been there when Max died, but when he came back, teachers were already expecting back the work he had missed.

It was possible they had been in love, or as in love as two thirteen year old boys could be, despite everyone saying it was impossible.

Because of this, Ernst might have believed he could fall in love himself if not for the way the priest had slipped behind him after Mass, pressing hands to thighs and backs to glass stained windows, and whispered the Lord wouldn’t mind. And it continued to appear that way when the Lord did nothing to save him. It hadn’t been love. It hadn’t been anything, at least to the priest, but said everything Ernst needed to know. If God couldn’t, then who would save him? Who would love him?

The priest did a sermon the next time the town was gathered in the chapel on the sin and inherent danger of homosexuality as if it would absolve him of guilt. Ernst had already known it was a sin the moment the priest had touched him. It had certainly felt like a sin.

Whispers flooded through their town like a Judgement. Some spoke of why the priest was being sent away. Another as to the man living alone on the corner of the street; never married, always watched. Two woman seen out the outskirts of town. Years passed. Around school rumors floated without ever needing to be spread farther than a few people. Ilse Neumann kissed a girl. Shakespearean Sonnet #20, the most blatant textual example of homosexuality Ernst had ever seen, was secretly spread around class under desks on a tiny piece of paper. Most boys laughed and giggled at it… Ernst yearned. When Hanschen was rumored to be spotted in a shed with Bobby Maler, Ernst’s ears rung, unsure which of them he was more jealous of, but the rest of the class rolled their eyes. He overheard one day Melchior Gabor telling Hanschen to go back to girls. A month later he was spotted flirting with Anna Wheelan.

So no, Ernst was not allowed to fall in love. He didn’t think that he ever would, and at the very least, he could not allow himself that possibility. 

Ernst, when looking back, thinks he fell in love so slowly that he didn’t realize he had until he couldn’t pull himself out. It was probably best that way, so that he didn’t overthink it. Maybe that love had doomed him but he thinks it had also been worth it.

It started with Hanschen taking the seat behind him in their shared literature class and asked him his opinion on the Greek epic they had annotated the night before.

“Achilles, hero or savage?” he had asked. “Were his motives pure or vengeful? I’m curious as to your opinion, I myself thought him quite the avenging angel of his lover.”

“Briseis?” Ernst asked, confused.

Hanschen had only laughed and said, “Patroclus.”

“But Patroclus was-“

“The reason Achilles went to war. Not Briseis. My god, Ernst, you really didn’t catch on?”

“That’s…” Not allowed. Wrong. Hanschen would know this more than anyone. He bore the weight of unspoken whispers following him with a head held high but that didn’t mean he didn’t know what people would say. What they did say.

But Hanschen only laughed again as if he already knew where Ernst’s thoughts were heading, “Why?”

“Well,” Ernst thought back to what his father would say, and what he had told himself on many occasions like when his eyes lingering where they shouldn’t. “The Bible says it’s a sin.”

“Where?” Hanschen asked, eyes twinkling with amusement.

That night, Ernst pulled out his copy of the holy book and read. He read until early morning, with only an hour left until class, and then after the final bell had rung, he read until supper and then into the late night.

Never once did it answer Hanschen’s question. It had never failed Ernst before,

The next day, Ernst read the Iliad again. He sat in his usual chair in Greek class and looked up when Hanschen sat behind him again.

“Well?” Hanschen asked.

“I don’t know,” Ernst said earnestly, and thinks that maybe there is a reason the whispers don’t bother Hanschen as much as they would Ernst.

“Last one to the creek has to hold Hanschen’s hand!” he heard Hanschen’s sister, Thea, scream later that day as he was picking his way to the vineyard where he could work on his Virgil and steal grapes from their branches.

Ernst thought back to catching Hanschen’s eye as the class evaluated the Iliad that day and wondered if he should slow down. 

When Wendla sees him as she’s running, skirts waving behind her, she gestures for him to join them. Ernst thinks of the lines of Latin he has to memorize and the essays he has yet to write. He thinks of Moritz with whom he is competing for the next spot in the advanced class who has mentioned shooting himself if he doesn’t get in and who appears more frustrated and stressed each day. He tries thinking of the patch of skin between Wendla’s stocking and her skirt but thinks of instead the bit of thigh he can see underneath the shorts of one of the boys sitting next to him in class. 

He follows her to the creek as if to prove a point.

His father doesn’t disapprove and Ernst thinks that sometimes it’s because he knows. Maybe being around girls will spark something in him. Of the two sins, it’s hard not to guess which one his father prefer.

Ernst is last to the creek, Wendla right in front of him. But still Thea laughs when they get there and says, “Wendla, you have to hold Hanschen’s hand.”

It’s just the way the world works.

Martha and Anna tell jokes by the riverside and invite Ernst to sit with them. There’s an innocence to this group of girls compared to the crudity of the teenage boys Ernst is used to. It’s like they don’t know what’s supposed to be happening; what Ernst is supposed to be feeling but isn’t.

Ilse might be the closest to comprehension as she pulls off her blouse with a wink in his direction and dives into the running water. Ernst, ever the good Catholic, looks away.

Thea and Melitta join her in the river even as Wendla and Martha chose to stay on the shore with Anna and her wheelchair.

Ernst watches them play, innocent and not yet aware of how the changes in their body should reflect their attitudes, and he can picture marrying one. Girls are pretty and kind, and he almost likes being around them more than he does the boys at their school. 

He would marry Melitta or Thea if not for the fact they remind him too much of their cousin or brother. He’s not yet sure if that’s good or bad.

He would marry Anna except it’s been a couple months since she and Hanschen had been something, whatever that had been, and Otto has a crush on her now. In fact, Otto had told him vividly about it, and marrying her might be against some secret code or pact made in locker rooms or school hallways.

He would marry Ilse but she seems to know far too much already and he fears she’d understand something he doesn’t really understand himself if he let her close enough.

He would marry Wendla but she seems more like a fairy queen than anyone who should marry. Eternally youthful and curious. One day she might grow into someone that’ll kiss and laugh but for now he almost hopes that she’ll keep the innocence she has. For now, they will dance together and splash water at the shore where they sit and pretend that they are still young.

Which leaves Martha, who doesn’t talk much and has a book on her lap as she’s interacting with her friends. Ernst catches her eye and understands a lot more than he should have. There is an empty part of her eye that he recognizes in his own, hidden behind layers of joy and curiosity and expectations, where he can see the mark of a priest or someone else who has decided that innocence is far too fleeting to begin with. Martha seems to recognize it in him as well and smiles softly at him.

Yes, maybe Ernst would marry Martha if only for the ways they would understand what needs to be understood. He thinks maybe they could be safe together.

Hanschen comes to take his sisters home in the late afternoon and blinks when he enters the clearing as if not sure if he is in a dream. His eyes rake across where Ilse is playing in the water, where Wendla is sitting on a nearby branch with her skirt hanging low, and catch on Ernst who must look out of place in this situation. But there is nothing to comment on. Not when they have caught sight of each other and Hanschen’s adams apple bobs thickly, his tongue slipping out as if suddenly needing to wet dry lips. 

Ernst is the first to look away because even though he has spent the last hour talking with Anna about fairytales and watching clothes stick to bodies in their soaked forms, this is what feels inappropriate.

“Thea, Melitta,” Hanschen calls, and when Ernst looks up again, he is gone.

Even though Wendla isn’t due home until sunset, she has to pick berries to accompany supper, and Martha offers to walk Anna home. Ilse has already disappeared off to wherever she lives nowadays; Ernst has heard it’s an artist colony. So he is left to walk home alone, and when he should have been thinking of tomorrow’s assignments, he thinks of today’s and Patroclus.

The next day in class, Ernst has a halfhearted essay that doesn’t matter much when Hanschen sits next to him again and invites him to eat lunch with his friends. Ernst knows all of them, it’s hard not to in a small town school, but it feels like he’s finally apart of something. While the teacher lectures about their new Latin phrases, Ernst finds it hard to pay attention when he’s looking forward to lunch for once and because Hanschen keeps glancing over in between lessons and remarks under his breath as if waiting for Ernst’s small huff of laughter. It's a little bit like how Hanschen looks at Bobby Maler, he thinks, but a kind of different he’s not quite sure what to do with yet much less comprehend.

At lunch, Ernst learns Melchior Gabor is just as much of a smartass as he is in class but he’s also moderately well intentioned, just passionately so. He learns that Georg plays the organ at church and that his piano teacher is strict - among other things. Otto is quiet but when he speaks, he’s quick witted enough to keep up with everyone else. 

Moritz is there too, as frazzled as ever, and although they’re competing for the advanced class position, he gives Ernst a quick smile in greeting as he celebrates a passing grade on his most recent essay. Ernst nods in return. They have a respect for each other, he and Moritz, even though only one of them can win. Moritz is so desperate for something to hold onto that Ernst has contemplated, and still does, letting Moritz be the one to pass the final exam. Pastors don’t need degrees. But still, it would hurt his family’s reputation if Ernst didn’t make it through which is the only reason he still tries.

And Hanschen… Ernst learns that Hanschen isn’t just some boy who is known the occasionally make the occasional sexual remark or flirtation. While Melchior can be crude while disguising it as honesty, Hanschen is merely unwilling to be ashamed of who he is. Melchior speaks of the lust in bodies, Hanschen speaks adds a layer of attraction to the people themselves. He’s intelligent and but is willing to slid away from conversation when it suits him. There is a copy of Shakespeare sticking out of his bag that Ernst knows isn’t there for class. He also slides Ernst his extra slice of cake with a wink before advising Georg on what to do about his piano teacher.

Suddenly, Ernst is part of something that he doesn’t quite know what to do with. Sometimes they’ll hang out by the creek bed like Ernst had done with Wendla and her friends the other day, and other times before a test or quiz they’ll find a table at the library and debate sciences and arts. Often, they’ll sit in the courtyard playing with stones across the cobble and making pointless bets or discussing girls because evidently that’s the thought process of every boy but Ernst. Maybe Hanschen is the same but the way his eyes flicker over a monologue about Desdemona or the way his eyes sometimes wander to some girl’s legs, makes Ernst think no girls is probably just an Ernst thing. At least, he thinks, he can be assured that boys aren’t just an Ernst thing when Hanschen is staring at him across the table like  _ that _ .

“Ernst?” Georg asked one day after droning on about his piano teacher. “Enough about us. Are there no women in your life?”

The words are enough to make Ernst pause and all of a sudden all of them seem aware that Ernst has never once said a word about anyone.

“I’ve seen him with Thea,” Melchior comments slyly as if that means something. 

“Thea?” Georg asks. “What’s so special about Thea?”

“Hey, that’s my sister,” Hanschen says, appalled, and luckily someone is quick to come up with another reply before Thea or anyone related to Hanschen can be hotly debated.

“He’s with Wendla more often,” Otto says, which is true, but for some reason Melchior frowns and says, “Wendla?” as if he hadn’t noticed.

“I saw him walking home with Anna the other day,” Georg notes, which is also true if only because Martha had been stuck home that day and Ernst had offered to walk her instead.

“Anna?” Otto asks offended, and turns out that is against some unsaid code, Ernst learns as he goes off on a rant. Melchior still looks peeved about the Wendla thing as if he’s got some kind of claim. 

“What about Martha?” Moritz suggests.

Everyone looks at him in surprise as Georg repeats skeptically, “Martha?”

Moritz fidgets a little before saying, “Martha. She’s… nice. And she’s friendly so maybe that’s Ernst’s type.”

Hanschen scoffs, clapping Ernst’s shoulder as he comes to his support and says, “Oh please. If Ernst wanted to tell you his type, he’d tell you. Not everyone wants to sleep with their mother,” he says looking pointedly at Otto, “or their teacher,” then at Georg, “or even their best friend’s mother,” and at this he looks over at Moritz who looks beet red. He finishes by looking at Melchior as if there are so many places where he could begin with him which has never really needed words.

There’s a silence before Melchior gets the chance to snort as if to clear the air. “As if you’re one to talk, Hanschen, you’ll flirt with anything.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Hanschen shrugs. “The world’s a beauty. And people have always liked beautiful things.”

When Ernst looks over at Hanschen standing by his shoulder in this weird makeshift circle in the courtyard, he can’t help but agree.

The exams come and go in a blur. Ernst doesn’t particularly care for studying but Hanschen seems to want him to pass so they spend days studying in the vineyard. 

“Focus,” Hanschen will laugh, before repeating information that seems so casual sliding off of his lips but struggle coming off of his own. 

Ernst will furrow his brow, looking at the words on the page as if just looking will give him the answer. “ _ Litora multum ille et terris iactatus et alto _ ,” he repeats, checking every word and pronunciation.

“And what of King Louis the Fifteenth?” Hanschen asks, sitting closer every day.

Ernst can barely stumble through an answer because he can suddenly not remember any history. 

The next day Hanschen quizzes him on Homer and suddenly Ernst is thinking about Achilles and Patroclus again. They are not answers that the exams would accept. But Hanschen must be thinking of the same answers that he is because suddenly they’re too close and Hanschen is looking at him like  _ that _ again, like he doesn’t want to look away, and if Ernst could just lean forward... except he’s backed up against a tree, book between them, and they’re already close enough as it is and although it’s completely different, Ernst thinks of the priest.

“What happened with you and Max,” he asks, scrambling for purchase, giving them both pause. “Before he died.”

Hanschen rears back a little bit but Ernst can’t feel guilty when all that he is feeling is a sudden relief of his careening thoughts. 

“That was three years ago,” Hanschen blinks.

“I know,” Ernst breaths. “And after that, there was Bobby Maler. And then Anna Wheelan. And now-“ he doesn’t say that Hanschen seems to have stuck on him but instead fades off, not sure of where to go from here.

Hanschen leans back in the grass where he’s far enough away that Ernst is both afraid and disappointed by the distance. “I liked Max,” he finally says. “Loved Max. His mother caught us together and he was expelled. My mother protected me from that, I think, but then again, I’ve always been spoiled.”

And there’s that word again. Love. Hanschen has been in love. 

“And Bobby?” Ernst asks weakly instead. “Anna?”

“I liked them too,” Hanschen says as if it’s that easy. 

But not love.

“You like both boys and girls,” Ernst comments, something he’s known but struggled to understand. But maybe it’s not complicated at all.

Hanschen seems to agree and shrugs. “Yes.”

“It’s safer to like girls,” Ernst warns him.

“I don’t pick who I like,” Hanschen says and he’s watching Ernst like he’d somehow judge him just as the rest of the town does behind his back. If it had never seemed to bother him before, he wonders why it does with him. “But I enjoy what I’m given.”

Ernst likes Hanschen’s perspective on things; how he believes in a world where it can be so simple as to want or to look around and find something he enjoys in everything. It’s not quite optimism, it’s selectively picking out what he wants and crafting it to fit his needs. It’s selfish and not very Christian but it’s also the type of world that would be nice to live in.

He wants to ask, “What about me?”

Instead, he looks back at his copy of the Iliad and pretends they’ve been talking about schoolwork the entire time. “It doesn’t make sense, to have started a war, just because of Helen’s beauty. All this carnage and loss could have been avoided.”

“Oh Ernst,” Hanschen sighs dramatically as if teaching an innocent pupil, casually playing along with Ernst’s evasion with comment. “The world revolves around love and lust. If there was ever a noble cause, that would be it.”

With that answer, Ernst thinks he understands Hanschen more than he ever has.

Ernst stares up at his ceiling that night, thoughts racing through his head. He had wanted Hanschen today in that way that Georg wanted his piano teacher or that Otto wants Anna. Part of him had wanted more; the fluttering in his chest or an innocent press of lips. He had wanted no space between them and to feel like, maybe, he was falling in love. He had been frightened but it hadn’t felt like something to be afraid of to begin with. It hadn’t felt like the type of sins in shadows or darkened churches. Ernst finds it hard to believe that something that comes so natural to so many people could condemn them all. Even if it’s with another boy.

In the darkness under covers, he closes his eyes, and he prays with shallow gasps and the memory of Hanschen’s smirk leaning in closer.

The midterm final comes and goes and Ernst doesn’t think he does very well. Studying sessions helped as much as they distracted, but at least he feels pretty solidly about some of his answers. Hanschen asks him if he thinks he passed in the hallways and Ernst can only shrug and hope for the best.

In the end, Moritz is the one who sneaks into the office and finds the scores. He was the one who passed. Georg and Otto give Ernst a pat on the back, knowing what this means for him, but their group cheers that day because they all know how desperately Moritz needed this win. As Ernst is congratulating Moritz, Hanschen stalks away as if he were the one losing his spot in the advanced class. 

They all stare after him in confusion but eventually Ernst is the one who follows as he always is.

“Hanschen!” He calls, catching him around the arm. “Hanschen, what’s wrong? I know you helped me study but this is no reflection on your talents as a tutor, it’s my own test and ability to focus.”

“I wanted you in advanced class,” Hanschen says stubbornly, as he swings around in Ernst’s grasp. “That’s why I wanted you to pass.”

“I don’t need a degree, Hanschen.”

“I know, Ernst.” He emphasizes, “But  _ I  _ wanted you there.”

Hanschen shakes away his hand and starts stalking out the courtyard but Ernst feels something in him yanking and suddenly doesn’t want him to leave. “We could meet in the vineyard,” he calls down the hallway. “Once a week.”

When Hanschen turns around, Ernst thinks he sees him smiling, slow and surprised but in a good way. “Okay.”

The next day class lists are announced and Moritz and Ernst's names have been switched. They all understand. Better a preacher’s boy than an anxiety ridden boy whose family had financial problems.

Soon after that, Moritz is dead. Ernst wishes to God their names hadn’t been switched because he could have survived what Moritz did not. He doesn’t think anyone else really believed Moritz’s threat of death if Georg and Otto were any reaction to go off of. Melchior seems as if it he were suddenly on a rollercoaster that came to a screeching halt. And Hanschen… he looks a little guilty as if hoping Ernst would pass was part of the blame.

The world drags downhill as more students are under scrutiny. Melchior is expelled. Ernst feels watched every time he so much as looks at Hanschen in the classroom. 

He’s sitting on a hill with Wendla a couple weeks later when she tells him. “I’m pregnant,” she whispers into the night. She can’t even look at him.

Ernst thinks of the way Melchior was weirdly possessive when he had thought Ernst might have a thing for Wendla and doesn’t have to ask who the father is.

He does wonder how it happened however- how pure little Wendla ended up in this situation, what Melchior had been doing and if he knew what he was risking. 

“I just wanted to be close to someone,” Wendla chokes out when he doesn’t speak. When she finally looks at him, her eyes are watery and her words cracked. “I just wanted to feel  _ something. _ Mama never told me, Ernst, she never told me a word.”

Ernst’s father also has never said a word but he’s never had to. The boys at school whisper about girls in the hallways and exchange secret codes and glances, but girls sigh as those like Melchior Gabor walk by when they have no clue what he whispers about. They’re shepherded away from the truth and kept in the little bubble of perfect daughter, perfect sister, perfect wife, while boys are free to wander. Most boys, at least.

“What are you going to do?” Ernst asks.

Wendla pauses and for a second Ernst expects the answer of, “I don’t know.” But instead she says softly, “Teach them. Like Mama never taught me.”

Ernst likes that answer much better. Maybe the next generation, the generation they raise, will be less harsh and more forgiving. They won’t push academics as the only priority onto young boys causing them to either succeed or slip into hopelessness. They won’t abandon their children when they need them or treat them as in somehow inferior. 

At least that’s his goal, and when Wendla leaves, he slips off to the church and sits in the empty pews like he does every Sunday and prays for a better world than the one they live in. 

His answer comes in the form of Hanschen Rilow standing in the archway just as the priest had done so many months ago. But this time, his face is relaxed and kind as he holds out a hand, gesturing Ernst forward. It’s the first time they’ve dared to meet since Melchior was expelled and supervision became stricter.

Ernst hesitates but stands and follows him outside to the hill by the vineyards where they have often spent their time. Without words, Hanschen sits against the tree like Ernst had back when they were studying, and Ernst sits next to him, shoulders touching.

The church bells sound, reminding them of the power it holds over their life, always looming over them. Ernst closes his eyes and speaks, “Do you ever think that we’ll be the same as the ones before us? That nothing will change and no one will ever listen?”

“Pessimistic of you,” Hanschen comments.

When Ernst opens his eyes again, he looks to his right and sees Hanschen watching him as if knowing that’s not all he wishes to say.

“When I grow up,” he starts again, sitting up straighter so he can speak to Hanschen without twisting his head. “I want to be a country pastor. I’ll have a wife and children will be able to reach out their hands for help that I can provide.”

“A wife?” Hanschen scoffs. “A member of the clergy?”

“I suppose,” Ernst shrugs. “I’ve always thought I’d have a wife. I’ve always dreamed of being on the clergy as well. God is a large part of my life, Hanschen, and I want to be able to teach his gospel.”

“Then teach it,” Hanschen says in that simple way of his. “But the clergy members are frauds, envious of those not trapped in the chapel and their version of His teachings.”

There is no one that knows that better than Ernst. There had been a priest in the church just over the hill that had committed a sin against him in the name of teaching a lesson, and there are more who ignore children’s pleas for help and shun them aside as if they were the ones sinning. 

“Is it so ridiculous to think that we can be different than those before us?” He asks softly.

“Oh Ernst,” Hanschen whispers. “We already are.”

This time when Hanschen leans forward, Ernst is ready, and relaxes into the hands that carefully place themselves on the side of his face to draw him closer and the lips that place themselves on his own. It’s a much sweeter moment than Ernst had dreamed it would be, if he allowed himself to dream at all, and is exactly what he feels it should be instead of what he had previously received. 

This is not the sin. What had been done to him was. 

Ernst thinks of what Hanschen had said about how love was often the most noble cause, and how even now, he couldn’t find a single scripture that mentioned anything contemning him. The god he believes in has preached love and forgiveness, and sitting in the vineyard with Hanschen, Ernst no longer believes that he would have taught otherwise. 

And there came the realization.

Ernst Robel was in love with Hanschen Rilow. He might have been for a while.

He doesn’t want to pull away. But he has to.

“Hanschen,” he says, but can’t find the words to say what he wants to.

The church looms over them even from a distance.

“I know,” Hanschen reassures.

“It just that…” Ernst starts, unsure of how to communicate what’s been haunting him for as long as he can remember. “We were only meant to ever talk.” 

The first thing that Ernst sees flash across Hanschen’s face is surprise, as if he had never considered what they were meant to do, and then hurt, as if Ernst held that above what they wanted. “So are you sorry that we…?”

“No,” Ernst immediately assures, turning to better face him, a hand reaching out to land on top of his. Hanschen’s pale skin is unbelievably warm; the touch more intimate than expected. Ernst clears his throat and then repeats again, words spilling out of him in desperation to reassure, “No, no, no. I- I love you, Hanschen. I just never expected to love anyone. At all. But now… I do.”

Hanschen stares at their hands brushing bare skin across each other and lets his thumb slide over Ernst’s knuckles before looking back up at him, all pale eyes and blonde hair that has since started falling in front of his forehead. He looks younger and kinder than he ever has, but still sure in his convictions. “And so you should. One day, thirty years from now, this will all seem unbelievably beautiful.”

It seems beautiful now. Ernst wants it to be, wishes it wouldn’t take so long for them to be accepted, and wonders if it’d even happen in his lifetime. Or in the next century. Or at all. Maybe they were always bound to be doomed.

“And in the meantime?”

It sounds like acceptance. It is acceptance.

Hanschen grins and says, “Why not.”

When they are an inch apart again, Ernst hesitates, feeling all the words he wants to say and all that he needs to say holding its breath between them.

“You’re going to bruise me,” he admits because they both know what will happen if they’re caught or even if they’re not.

“I’m going to bruise too,” Hanschen admits in return, and Ernst hadn’t thought he had the ability before to be able to hurt someone however unintentionally.

As if sensing spiraling thoughts, Hanschen closes the distance, sweet and calming, and gently guides Ernst to the ground as he follows suit. The world is large and the future is unknown, but for now it’s just two boys, Ernst laying in the grass and Hanschen hovering over him, confident but careful in his kisses and his eyes ask permission as he lowers his hand down, down, down, down, down.

Ernst lets out a noise that he’s never heard himself make before, promising and unrestrained, and nods frantically, placing a hand on Hanschen’s neck and pulling him closer until their bodies fit together. He swears he hears the other boy huff out a laugh against his lips.

They may not have all of the time in the world but Ernst likes to think they have more than today.


End file.
